


Metamorphosis

by HubcapsAndAshtrays



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Moderate Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2018-10-17 02:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10584978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HubcapsAndAshtrays/pseuds/HubcapsAndAshtrays
Summary: “Are you ready to go home?” Kara asks in that same hesitant tone that everyone had seemed to adopt around her. She had only been back for a little over an hour and already the whole ‘egg shells’ act everyone had going on was getting tiring.Then again, having someone who had been missing -most likely presumed dead for a whole year, suddenly be spat out of a portal during a routine briefing probably warranted that sort of reaction.Kara fails to stop the Exodus ship from launching, a year later Alex finally manages to find her way back home.





	1. Part One

It’s funny, the little things that got to you. How the small things that might have once seemed so trivial and unimportant could suddenly become the very thing that had you desperately trying to make sense of what your life had become, racking your brain to try to come up with some sort of logical explanation as to _why._

Why you?

No, that wasn't right. Why _not_ you? Was a better question.

_Why hadn't it been you?_

Alex stares at the calendar in front of her, brown eyes fixed in almost a glare at the numbers displayed.

There's footsteps behind her, purposefully loud and steady. The corner of Alex's mouth quirks upwards self deprecatingly, it seemed that her earlier ‘incident’ was now common knowledge. It appeared that chatter still spread around the DEO like a bad cold, that much hadn’t changed.

She hopes that that doctor was doing ok.

“Alex?”

Alex doesn’t need to turn around to identify the owner of the tentative voice. She doesn’t respond, eyes still fixed on the calendar.

The little things.

“It’s 2018” She manages to grunt out through the dryness of her throat “It was 2017 when i…”

Left?

No that suggests that she had a choice in the matter, that she wasn't launched directly into cold dark space.

Maybe that was what she got for always trying to play the hero.

Alex trails off into silence, her finger tracing over the bold figure eight. It was fitting she supposed, it _had_ felt like an eternity since she had last been inside the DEO.

“Are you ready to go home?” Kara asks in that same hesitant tone that everyone had seemed to adopt around her. She had only been back for a little over two hours and already the whole ‘egg shells’ act everyone seemed to have going on was getting tiring.

Then again, having someone who had been missing, most likely presumed dead for a whole year, suddenly be spat out of a portal during a routine briefing probably warranted that sort of reaction.

Alex pulls her finger off of the calendar and turns to face Kara.

She still couldn’t get over how much older Kara looked. Maybe older wasn’t the right word, tired? Mature? Jaded? She had faint circles underneath her eyes and a sadness in her gaze that hadn’t been there before. Bright blue eyes that used to scream of hope and youthfulness now seemed to have given way to pain and a type of weariness that could only come with losing the people you loved over and _over_.

How much of that pain had she put there?

Alex nods “Home, yeah, ok”

 

###  


In the end It’s Kara who has to push open her apartment door. Alex had stood staring at the locked door for a good five minutes, unable to open it, _unwilling_ to open it.

Maybe it had been fear, fear that everything would be _exactly_ as she left it, untouched by time. Jagged scars and painful memories the only solid proof that the tortuous year had ever actually occurred.

She had been terrified of opening the door to find a museum to the person she had once been instead of a _home_.

It seemed that that fear however had been unwarranted. The place had been lived in, that much was obvious by the numerous takeout boxes littering the table and the distinct lack of surface dust. The couch had a worn pillow and blanket strewn over the top of it, more proof that someone had been staying here, and quite often if the sunken in cushions were anything to go by.

Someone who couldn’t quite _bring_ themselves to sleep in the more than comfortable bed mere meters away.

Alex stands awkwardly in the middle of the apartment, it was disconcerting how _normal_ everything was. The National City traffic still roared outside, the birds at her window still chirped incessantly. Of course she hadn’t expected the world to had ended in her absence, but maybe she had expected something different, expected to _fee_ l something different, anything other than this… numbness.

Kara carefully lowers herself onto the couch “I know… i know that things might seem a bit strange for you right now, but things will get better soon enough”

It was nice to know that Kara still hadn’t lost her naivety.

“Let's hope” says Alex, still feeling like a stranger in her own home. She sits beside Kara and tries to ignore the new creak in her couch.

Kara bites her lip, her eyes glistening with unshed tears “Can i?” her arms reach out towards Alex before quickly pulling back unsure.

It stings that Kara now feels that she has to ask for something that used to come so naturally to them.

“Come here” says Alex softly, beckoning her over.

Kara all but flings herself into her arms for the second time today, clutching tightly onto her shoulders. Alex smothers the instinctive urge to pull away in the smell of her sister's hair, in the feel of her heart beating rapidly against her chest.

She was _home_.

“I never gave up hope” Kara whispers, her voice watery “I knew you would come back, i always _knew_ ”

There’s a key turning in the door, Alex jumps up, grabbing a fork off of the coffee table and is at the door in less than a second, fork raised threateningly.

The door opens and Maggie is suddenly stood wide eyed in the doorway, equal parts awe and heartbreak in her expression.

“They told me… i knew.. But i” Maggie stutters out, the door swinging shut behind her.

Kara is suddenly removing the fork from Alex’s white knuckled grip and then Maggie is falling into her arms. Alex’s body immediately responds, wrapping her arms around the very woman that she had painfully resigned to never seeing again..

They still fit together.

There’s a wetness on her shoulder. Alex barely notices Kara apologizing, something about a fire downtown before reluctantly diving out of the window with a longing backward glance.

Maggie pulls away slightly, just enough to glance up at Alex. Her hair is shorter, it's the first thing Alex notices. Nothing drastic, just by a couple of inches but it’s enough to cause a tightening in her throat all the same. _Another_ reminder of all she had missed and undeniable proof of a fact that Alex had been avoiding ever since being spat back on earth.

Her life is unfamiliar.

 _Maggie_ is unfamiliar _._

She’s wearing a jacket that Alex has never seen before, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

It shouldn’t be.

“How are you?” asks Alex as Maggie gently guides her to the couch. It’s the first thing that comes to mind, and it’s stupid because she’s spent _countless_ nights rehearsing and stressing over what she would say to Maggie if she ever saw her again. Some nights it had been the only thing that had kept her going.

Maggie lets out a watery laugh “I’m great, i’m really great”

She’s staring at her with complete love and adoration in her eyes, a look that Alex doesn’t feel deserving of being on the receiving end of, not after all that she’s done. Some of it had been in the name of survival, but others…

Alex shakes her head in an attempt to dislodge her spiraling thoughts, Maggie watches her with a concerned frown.

“Are you ok?”

“I just didn’t think that i would ever see you again” whispers Alex, a lump rising in her throat.

Maggie cups her cheek with one hand, her thumb rubbing soothing circles over the skin “I missed you so much Alex”

“You were with me the entire time” breathes Alex, her forehead falling forward to rest against Maggie’s.

They sit like that for a while, Alex listening to the sounds of Maggie’s breaths puffing gently against her cheek. It had been so long since she’s been this close to another person, she had been alone for so long.

There’s something rising in her chest and this time she can’t swallow it down, Alex bites at the inside of her lip, fighting and losing an internal battle as the first sob claws it way out of her throat. She clenches her teeth and looks away as she feels another sob burning its way up her throat, she refuses to let it out. Suddenly there's gentle hands rubbing up and down her back comfortingly, it’s all Alex needs for another sob to squeeze its way out of the growing cracks in her composure.

“I got you, you’re home now”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its 4am blame Arrow and the strange relationship i have with that show.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a very good reason why Eliza is not in this…. I just have to figure it out first.
> 
> Anyway it's 4am again so here’s part two of 'All The Way Down' or as it is colloquially known ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ seriously the amount of times i have written, erased and then rewritten that phrase is ridiculous.
> 
> (I also may or may not have burrowed some dialogue from Arrow for this fic, however, that can neither be confirmed nor denied)

Alex suddenly jolts awake, heart thumping rapidly in her chest. She sits upright and takes a deep breath, an attempt to calm the fear and adrenaline still coursing through her veins. Maggie snoozes peacefully beside her, a dark lock of hair rising and falling with each gentle breath, Alex times her rapid pants with the soft rise and fall and soon enough her chest no longer feels like it’s on fire.

She shivers against the chill that seemed to seep into her very bones before quickly dragging herself out of bed and stumbling over to the bathroom on shaky legs, trying not to wake Maggie in her clumsy navigation of her own apartment.

Her toothbrush is still there.

After all this time it’s still sat in the glass tumbler leant up against Maggie’s blue one, an overly expensive electric toothbrush that Alex had brought her. She remembers joking and laughing about Maggie’s extreme dislike of the dentist and her almost obsessive oral health routine. Maggie had rolled her eyes good naturedly before giving her a grateful and breathtaking kiss.

Alex swallows against the sudden lump in her throat, in all the time that she had been gone she had never really stopped to consider what everyone at home had been going through.

She clutches at the sink, taking comfort in the cool unyielding porcelain against her clenched fingertips.

The large mirror looms menacingly in front of her, she’s been avoiding mirrors and all other types of reflective surface since arriving back on earth. She keeps her head down and allows her eyes drift back to the intertwined toothbrushes.

It seemed like everyone had been holding their breath waiting for the return of a person who was long since gone. She hasn’t felt like Alex Danvers in a very long time, and even now at home surrounded by memories and physical evidence of the person she had once been she still didn’t. That person had been lost in acts necessity, bits of her left behind on every planet she had hopped from, ran from, fled from.

She was scared that she would look in the mirror and not recognise the person she had been forced to become.

Alex pries her hands off of the sink and slowly makes her way back to the bed where Maggie is sat staring up at her in the dark, eyes soft.

“Want to talk about it?”

Alex climbs into bed with a weary sigh “Not really”

It’s silent for a while before Alex hears what sounds like a muffled sniffle coming from Maggie, she frowns concerned “...Maggie?”

“I woke up and you were gone and i just...” Maggie lets out a self deprecating laugh that sounds painfully like a sob, it tugs at something in Alex’s chest. “I’m sorry, i guess i just sort of panicked for a second there”

Alex remains silent, guilt rolling in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t know how to comfort her own girlfriend, not any more. There’s an apology on the tip of her tongue but that doesn’t seem quite right.

She tugs awkwardly at her damp pajamas before lowering her hands, staring at them as they  clench and unclench seemingly of their own accord. The amber light streaming in from the streetlamps outside casts familiar dark shadows onto Alex’s palms, something falls in her throat and all of a sudden she can almost smell a faint iron tang in the air. Alex quickly turns her hands back around wiping at the pale bed-sheet but the shadows are still there.

Suddenly there are warm, gentle hands being placed on top of her own, stilling their panicked movement. “Hey, come back to me” Maggie whispers.

Alex blinks up at her “Can we turn on the light?” she asks quietly.

Maggie switches on the bedside lamp wordlessly.

“I… There was a time when it- it was dark, it was dark a lot” Alex tries to offer up in explanation.

Maggie nods but doesn’t ask her to elaborate, for which Alex is unendingly grateful.

“This must be a crazy adjustment for you” says Maggie.

Alex shrugs, staring at the hands still positioned on top of her own “You’re helping”

She carefully turns Maggie’s hands over and begins tracing her fingertips over the top of the fleshy palms, mapping out every curve, edge, contour and callous. Refamiliarising herself with Maggie’s hands.

Hands that had once been as familiar as her own.

Alex doesn’t know who initiates it, who closes the gap first but suddenly they are kissing and it’s like no time has passed, suddenly she’s brought back to all the times that they were together before they had been ripped apart. She feels hands grabbing at the neck of her shirt pulling her in even closer and suddenly she’s tilting forward, falling on top of Maggie still kissing and searching _desperately_ to finally feel something other than fear and loathing.

One of Alex’s worst fears had also coincidentally been one of her greatest wishes: that Maggie had moved on. As much as it had hurt to finally come to accept it, Alex had realised that she loved Maggie too much to have her spend the rest of her life waiting for someone who most likely was never coming back.

Was it possible to feel both relieved and guilty at once?

Her hands skirt up Maggie’s shirt and suddenly the adrenaline rushing through her veins no longer stems from fear and distress but from something else altogether, something she had missed for months and months.

She was finally feeling _something._

Gentle hands push against her chest “Wait, Alex”

“Mmm” Alex mumbles, too caught up in a haze of desire and need to really hear Maggie.

“Stop, we need to stop” Maggie’s voice is breathy but firm.

Alex immediately pulls away with a frown, had she read the entire situation wrong?

Maggie must see something in her expression because she quickly launches into a explanation “It’s not you, I just think we should take it slow. I don't want you rushing into anything, i mean it's been a while and i don’t think _either_ of us are in the right mindset to do anything like that right now”

Alex nods stiffly, still feeling a slight pang of rejection “Ok”

There’s a gentle smile on Maggie’s face, almost pitying  “We can cuddle if you like?”

She gives a single silent nod.

It’s only hours later that Alex realises that Maggie’s left the light on for her.

 

###

She’s awake as the first rays of the early morning sun begin peeking in through the curtains, casting warm blades of golden light across Maggie’s sleeping face. Alex had spent the entire night unsuccessfully chasing sleep, her sleeping pattern, it seemed did not care that she was now back on Earth, still coming in irregular bursts and starts. Alex however, had been more than happy to spend the night cataloging every feature of Maggie’s face, committing them to memory.

There’s a small almost inaudible groan as the woman in question begins to stir.

The corner of Alex’s mouth twitches up into a smile “Good morning”

Maggie responds with a low grunt before flopping over to face Alex “Did you sleep at all?”

Alex shrugs and props herself up on her elbows “I don’t need much sleep”

Maggie frowns but seems to let it go. “Wait, don’t tell me that you were watching me sleep all night” she’s wearing an amused smile.

Alex looks away with a blush “What? No! well i mean uh... kind of”

Maggie chuckles, and gently turns Alex’s red face back to face her “It’s ok, it’s cute” she drops her hand with a groan “I’ll make a start on coffee, god knows i’m useless without it”

Alex watches her go “Do you have to go into work?”

“Nope, I asked to have a few days off” says Maggie, punctuated by the clanging of cutlery.

Alex frowns “You never take the day off”

“Well something more important than work came up. And i want to be there for your debriefing”

Alex freezes, the debriefing right, that was today.

“I’m making pancakes, do you want some?”

“I’m not hungry” she mumbles, sombred by the reminder of her upcoming ‘third degree’.

Alex gets up and peers into her closet, surprised to see all her clothes still there, neatly hung and almost waiting for her. Her fingers brush over a few of Maggie's hoodies hung up alongside her own. Alex frowns, those hadn’t been there before, they hadn’t quite gotten to the stage of sharing storage space before the 'incident'.

She wanders over to her old leather jacket draped over the bedside table and picks it up, it's crumpled, too crumpled to have been just worn, more like it had been… squeezed? hugged? Alex quickly places it back down.

The debriefing was what she needed to focus on, one thing at a time. She pulls a random shirt from the drawer and begins to remove her pajama top.

“Hey coffees ready if you-”

There’s a sudden gasp behind her, Alex’s head quickly whips around, her shirt still halfway off. Maggie is stood frozen at the foot of the bed, her eyes fixed on her back.

Alex quickly drags off the shirt and reaches for the new one, wanting to get her back out of sight as quickly as possible.

Maggie approaches slowly her, her mouth slightly agape “Alex what?...” she reaches a hand up to her back.

Alex quickly turns around hiding her back that was more scar tissue than skin from view “Don’t.. please” She quickly puts on the clean shirt, actively avoiding Maggie’s concerned gaze.

“Alex i saw burns and.. And whip marks?”

“I don’t want to talk about it” she says, voice firm.

“Who did this to you?” there’s a painful break in Maggie’s voice.

“It doesn’t matter anymore” says Alex before taking a deep breath and forcing optimism into her tone “What matters is _you_ , I want to hear all that’s happened since I've been gone, all the exciting stuff”

“The exciting stuff?” Maggie shakes her head in disbelief and lets out a bitter laugh “Alex it’s been _hell_ since you left”

Alex looks to the ground, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I’m sorry, i shouldn’t have said that” Maggie says quickly.

“No, it’s alright” Alex pulls at the hem of her shirt and forces a laugh “You know what i’m so silly, i should have had a shower first before i-” She jabs a thumb at the bathroom “i’m going to have a shower”

“Alex...” starts Maggie but Alex is already walking away, a muted curse is the last thing she hears before quickly shutting the door

 

###

She feels strange.

Being inside the DEO again after all this time was strange to say the least. Alex felt off kilter in a way that she hadn't felt yesterday, the stares that she was receiving from everyone wasn’t helping one bit. There were smiles, respectful head tilts and even hand shakes from the agents that she recognised, but she also noticed the hushed whispers and discreet stares from new agents to whom she was most likely some sort of prodigal son or urban legend, Agent Danvers: the agent who had returned from the dead.

She turns a corner and is nearly knocked over by a blur of red and blue.

“Alex!” squeals Kara “I wanted to come back yesterday but i figured it was late and that you wanted to get some rest-” she’s rambling.

“It’s fine, it’s ok Kara” says Alex, her unease manifesting as a cold stiffness in her tone.

Kara’s brow furrows “I really am sorry, i just thought that with everything that you might have been tired”

“She’s nervous about the debriefing” explains Maggie.

Kara lets out a small relieved chuckle “Nervous? You don’t need to be nervous Alex, it’s just a routine debriefing”

“Kara, there’s _nothing_ routine about this” mumbles Alex.

Kara grins “Maybe not, but there’s nothing to be nervous about. Everyone loves you Alex, you’re a _hero_ ” 

Alex feels frustration bubbling up in her chest, why couldn’t Kara understand? “I’m the furthest thing from a hero”

Kara rolls her eyes, unaware of the turmoil growing in her sister “Don’t be ridiculous, the only reason that you even went onto that ship in the first place was to _save_ everyone else-”

“Where are they Kara?!” Alex suddenly snaps, she doesn't know where this torrent of anger is coming from “I know you want to ask! i know _everyone_ wants to ask, it’s the million dollar question, right up there with ‘What the hell happened to you out there Alex?’”

“Alex-” Kara begins, eyes wide.

She lets out a harsh exhale “heroism is about self sacrifice, but lately it seems like it’s everyone else that has been doing the sacrificing for me” Alex lets out a bitter laugh “And you know the worse thing is that i keep wondering if their sacrifice was even worth it"

Kara shakes her head, shocked “Take that back” She demands, voice low.

“I can’t, It’s the truth”

“Don’t you say that, don’t you _ever_ say that!” Kara's almost shaking with anger “How could you even believe...? After all that’s happened?” She rakes a hand through her hair “You know what i can’t right now, i just need a minute-”

Kara stalks off.

Alex lets out a long frustrated exhale “I’m sorry, i didn’t i…” she begins before Maggie cuts her off, voice gentle.

“Hey, you’ve been through a lot. You get to lose your cool” Maggie sighs “Kara she just.. She worries about you”

Alex gives a noncommittal hum, still feeling like an asshole who after all this time only came back to make things worse.

Maggie reaches forward to tuck a lock of Alex's hair behind ears “I worry about you too you know" her hand falls to her cheek "And you are so worth saving, despite whatever irredeemable things you think you’ve done. There is _nothing_ that would ever make me turn my back on you Alex Danvers”

Alex almost looks away, the affection shining in Maggie's eyes and unwavering conviction in her voice overwhelming.

“You hear me?” asks Maggie, serious.

Alex doesn't respond, she doesn't know she could possibly verbalize it all. She instead lunges forward connecting their mouths, trying to convey all that she couldn't say into the kiss, the 'thank you' the 'i love you' and any and everything else that swirled around inside of her.

She’s slightly breathless as she pulls back “Ride or die?”

"Always”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is anyone else super pumped for episode 19? i mean any Alex centric episode automatically gets a thumbs up from me, i just hope that i haven't set my expectations too high.


	3. Part Three

_Hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium..._

_She doesn’t know how long it’s been, days blur into weeks that blur into months that blur and blur until everything feels like its submerged underwater, foggy and distorted. There are no days here, just the endless night._

_It had been what felt like years ago when she had finally come to the cutting realisation that Hell wasn’t some fiery place filled with the crying souls of the damned, or whatever it was people claimed. No, true torment existed within a cold, empty pocket of space._

_...Wait, no. Not empty, she wasn’t alone. There was the darkness, and it was a sadistic little shit._

_Rubidium, caesium, francium,_ _beryllium..._

_She had kept it at bay for as long as she could, watching as it had lurked just outside of the thin walls of the stolen ship, mocking her incessantly. It had won, the ship’s power had plummeted  and she had had no choice but to switch off the lights._

_Although right now she wonders whether or not that had been the right call, anything seemed better than this... stillness. She had spent what felt like an eternity waiting and she was beginning to lose sight of what exactly for. For food and water to eventually run out? For a SOS vessel to come along? For the rickety ship to finally give up on her?_

_Maybe she had been wrong. This wasn’t Hell, it was Purgatory._

_She’s not the sentimental type, but now she almost wishes that she was, because then she might have kept a picture of Maggie in her wallet. She can almost picture it, dog eared and fading from all of the times she would have clenched it to her chest. She can almost feel the material against her calloused and torn fingertips._

_Maybe then she would have had the courage to turn the lights back on, one last look was more than worth draining the power for._

_Magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium…_

_Barium…_

_Barium…_

_For the first time in fifteen years Alex forgot what came next._

 

###

“Radium!” says Alex suddenly, the exclamation echoes loudly in the large briefing room, piercing the clinical silence.

The agent sat at the head of the long rectangular table frowns “Sorry, what?”

“The alkaline earth metals” She explains with a shrug “Radium, it comes after barium”

The agent’s lips tighten in visible annoyance “Will you please just answer the question?”

Alex slumps back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. A small rational part of her mind tells her that she most likely looks like a petulant teenager but she quickly squashes it down, determined to fight this tooth and nail. “Sure, what was it again?”

“What happened after you landed?”

There’s a recording device in the middle of the table, Alex stares at it in detached fascination, watching as a tiny red light pulses in time with her long exhales. That hadn’t been protocol a year ago, she raises a brow, impressed, it looked like HR finally did something about all those paperwork related carpal tunnel complaints.

There’s a pointed throat clearing.

Alex’s eyes snap back up to the impassive agent in front of her before narrowing ever so slightly, she recognises him. He had been a gifted junior agent and a quick riser, much like she herself had been once upon a time.

It wasn’t surprising that he had become the director’s new right hand.

“A lot happened” She answers coolly.

“Well...” the corner of the agent’s mouth quirks upwards into a small smirk that Alex didn't remember being quite so unpleasant “Let's start from the beginning, what was the name of the planet you landed on?”

She shrugs, consciously fighting the sudden urge to bounce her leg underneath the table “I don’t know, it turns out intergalactic space navigation isn't Cadmus's forte. We ended up landing on a different planet to the one we were programmed for”

“How long were you there for?”

Alex sighs “Look, we landed on a hostile planet where the locals didn’t take too well to a few hundred aliens showing up out of nowhere, they threw us all in prison cells”

A prison cell was one word for it, cement box was another. She had somehow managed to luck out and share a cold leaky cell with Lyra, others however, had not been so fortunate. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to forget the overwhelming stench of blood that seemed to permeate from the very walls themselves.

Alex shakes her head, forcing herself back into the present “The whole planet was on the brink of a civil war so i guess everyone was feeling slightly more sadistic than usual with that looming over their heads. I’m sure you can understand why it _might_ have been hard to keep track of time in a place like that”

The agent's face remains stoic “Was everyone on board the ship placed into this prison?”

“As far as i know” says Alex with a nod.

“But you escaped?”

“Yeah, and i left the planet”

“Just like that?” he asks with raised brows, incredulity clear in his tone.

Alex raises a brow, mirroring him “Just like that”

He clears his throat, expression quickly melding back into neutral dispassion “How were you able to leave the planet?”

Her eyes narrow “I don’t see how that is relevant, i think i’ll pass”

“Noted, did anyone else escape with you?”

Alex’s jaw tightens “Well, i’m the only one here aren’t i?”

“That doesn’t answer my question Agent”

“Last time i checked this was a debriefing not an interrogation” says Alex casting uneasy glances up at the two agents stood unmoving on either side of him.

The agent’s lips purse “Fair enough, however, we _do_ need to know what happened to all those aliens Agent Danvers” 

“They’re dead” The words seem to pull themselves up out of her throat of their own accord, dragging up a bitter taste with them.

The agent pauses and for a split second Alex swears she sees a flash of something akin to grief on his face “Care to elaborate?”

“Like i said” Alex grits out through clenched teeth “the planet was on the brink of a civil war, it got pushed over the edge and there were airstrikes, the prison was hit. I tried to go back but... there was only rubble left”

“And you were the only one that escaped?” it sounds more like an accusation than a question.

“Yes” it takes all Alex has to stop her voice from cracking on the small, scratchy affirmative.

“I’m sorry Agent, have i done something to offend you?”

Alex frowns, confused, and looks up at the agent who simply nods towards her hands. She glances down noticing white knuckled fists clenched on top of the metal table, it takes her a minute to realise that they’re hers.

“Well, now that you mention it you _did_ deny my girlfriend access into the room” she responds dryly, trying to hide the shakiness in her voice.

“Its protocol Agent, you do still remember protocol don’t you?” he asks, words soaked in condescension.

It’s enough to push Alex over the edge, for the anger and insecurity that seemed to be constantly simmering under the surface to reignite.

“I have a question for you” says Alex, voice deceptively calm. “How long did it take for you to get that job?”

“Sorry?-”

She lets out a bitter laugh “Was it the next day? The next week? I mean, i’m sure the position needed filling but i wasn’t dead, and you seem pretty cozy there”

“Agent-”

The chair lets out a jarring screech and nearly topples over as Alex suddenly stands, palms splayed out flat on the table. “Did anyone even try to look for us? For me? Or did you just cut your losses? I mean i know i wasn’t technically working for the DEO at the time-”

“That’s enough” The agent says firmly.

“You’re right, because I’m done with this” Says Alex, finality clear in her tone “I’m back, none of what happened is important. What’s important is what happens now, so am i under arrest?”

He frowns “Why would you be under arrest?”

“I don’t know” breathes Alex, all the fight suddenly drained out of her “But i sure feel like the bad guy right about now” she reaches forward and turns off the recording device with a soft click “I’m done” she says before leaving the room.

She finally feels able to breathe as she stands leant up against the outside of the door, Alex tilts her head back against the cool metal taking a deep breath in.

 

“Did.. Did she die in the prison?”

Alex freezes at the familiar voice to her right, Winn. She doesn’t look at him, _she_ can’t look at him. Her eyes stay fixed on the high ceiling, wondering how a place that used to seem like a second home to her could suddenly feel so cold and uninviting.

Winn’s breathing is shaky and uneven as it reaches her ears, he sounded on the verge of tears, most likely having spent the entire briefing holding out and hoping for any sort of indication that Lyra was safe and awaiting his rescue, hoping that his friend had had the decency to at _least_   try to look out for and protect his girlfriend.

She hadn’t been able to do even that right.

“I’m so sorry Winn” Alex chokes out before quickly rushing past and down the closest hallway, needing to be away from it all, away from the questions and the looks and the expectations, just needing to be _anywhere_ but here.

###

She’s panting, slumped against a wall and had gotten nowhere near as far as she would have liked when Maggie finds her “It’s been awhile since I've been on a planet with gravity as strong as Earth's” she mumbles out in explanation “I feel like i weigh one hundred tonnes sometimes”

Maggie sits down next to her “We did look for you, you know” she says quietly

Alex sighs “I know, i didn’t mean it, i was just.. angry and… Wait, how did-?”

Maggie reaches into her pocket and pulls out an ear piece “Winn”

“So you heard that train-wreck?" 

“The dude is an ass, I've been forced to work with him enough to know” says Maggie with a shrug “I would have decked him”

Alex smiles “No you wouldn't have, you're too good”

“Probably not, but it got you to smile” says Maggie with a soft grin before standing and offering out her hand “Come on”

“Where are we going?” asks Alex taking the warm hand and letting herself pulled up.

Maggie keeps hold of her hand as she leads her down the hallway "Anywhere but here"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe i'll take a break from angst after this fic.
> 
> Anyway sorry for the delay but a comment and kudos makes a writers day :)


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Bet you thought i had died!
> 
> I won't bore you with any excuses.

The bar never truly recovered from the launching of the Exodus ship, it's the first thing that Alex notices after shuffling inside, an encouraging coax from Maggie the only thing stopping her from running a mile in the opposite direction. Physically, everything in the bar appeared exactly the same, right down to the shadowy lighting and unsteady three-legged stool sat to the far left of the jukebox.

She tries not to focus too much on the pool tables, memories that no longer felt like her own prodding at the edge of her mind, demanding attention after being coated in silica and sealed shut.

“What are you thinking about?” Asks Maggie.

Alex’s fingers worry the half-empty whiskey glass in front of her. She stills them with a sigh, the exhale sounding overly loud over the ‘barely there’ music dribbling out of the jukebox. 

The only change, it seemed, also happened to be the most stark and irrefutable one. The atmosphere.  _ mourning _ . The bar was mourning and it was almost suffocating. The air held a certain somberness, a melancholy unlike the usual sorrow-drowning of local haunts. This was a desolation that had seeped into the very walls themself, into the slumped shoulders of the bartender and forlorn creaking of the door.

“Where’s M’gann?”

“Mars” Alex’s head snaps upwards “Right, yeah, a lot happened while…” Maggie trails off, becoming more and more interested in the chipped wood of the bar top.  

The corner of Maggie’s mouth quirks upward but it lacks any real amusement. “So it turns out the president was an alien in disguise”

Alex nearly chokes on her whiskey “What? How?” 

“She was a war refugee who wanted to make the Earth a welcoming place for aliens. Apparently that was what the whole amnesty act was about” says Maggie with a casual shrug, as if discussing something as trivial as the weather.

Alex blinks, bewildered. What the hell had happened during the past year that had made the  _ President of the United States  _ being an _ alien  _ a casual conversation topic?

“Wait,  _ was _ ? What happened?”

“I guess that after the Dax- after the DEO found out, the information must have been leaked somehow” Maggie motions to the bartender for another glass before she continues, voice low “Kara found her inside the oval office with a radioactive bullet in the back of her head” 

There’s a sudden sick feeling rising in the back of Alex’s throat. She wants to say something,  _ anything _ but her mind suddenly feels just as blank as Maggie’s eyes look and all Alex can see is her sister cradling yet  _ another  _ dead body, drowning in self-blame while alien blood stains the bright red of her cape.

“It was hard on her, the whole year was hard on her. After you were gone it was like Supergirl lost her hope. Whole city was starting to remind me of Gotham” murmurs Maggie before taking a long swig of the whiskey placed in front of her.

Alex shuffles in uncomfortable silence “Did… did you ever find out who shot the president?”

Maggie snorts into her now empty glass “I’ll give you one guess”

_ Cadmus. _

Alex’s jaw clenches at just the thought of the cancer-like organisation, the organisation that had taken everything from her “They’re still around?” she rasps.

“Yeah” says Maggie “We hit them hard a few months back so we think that they've gone underground”

The jukebox splutters before choking out another song. The beginnings of a sickly sweet baseline oozes out of the speakers and Alex winces at the ridiculous amount of hi-hat, the sudden upbeat track feeling forced and grossly out of place in the dusky room. 

“How’s Winn been-?” 

“-Why di dn’t you let J’onn do the debriefing?”

Maggie chuckles “Sorry, you first”

“No, it’s ok” says Alex before awkwardly clearing her throat “It’s just that… Well, he can.. he can read minds”

It feels stupid now that she says it out loud. Deep down Alex knows that J’onn would never pry on purpose, but she’s also sure that the memories stamped to the forefront of her mind would be pretty impossible to miss. 

Hell, all she had to do was close her eyes.

There’s a sympathetic look of understanding on Maggie’s face “You know you can’t avoid him forever” she says softly.

“I know” breathes Alex “I just need… time” 

“Then that’s what he’ll give you, he’ll understand.”

Alex nods and tries to hold on to the fervency of Maggie's voice.

“You know, i did get Kara to try vegan ice cream”

Alex’s head snaps towards Maggie “No you didn’t”

She's wearing a smug grin, elbow rested casually on top of the bar “I did and she took it  _ way _ better than you did. in fact, she didn’t even notice the difference until i told her”

Alex's eyes narrow, skeptical “I don’t believe you”

“Well, you can ask her next time you see her and do you know she’ll tell you?”

“That it was horrible and she nearly barfed?” teases Alex.

Maggie rolls her eyes giving Alex a playful shove “You’re so dramatic”

Alex grins “Only because my taste buds are actually function-”

The rest of Alex’s sentence is cut off by a sudden strike to her right shoulder, strong enough to almost tip over her stool.

Her whole body tenses, and her fist clench immediately ready to defend herself. There’s a gentle and steadying hand on her thigh, Maggie’s. Alex forces her breathing to stabilise and her hands to unclench.

“Alex? You ok?” asks Maggie her concern clear.

Alex takes another breath before nodding confidently “I'm good… Just caught me off guard” 

“I’m so very sorry” comes an apologetic voice from her right “I believe I must have lost my footing for a second there”

Alex turns around, ready to wave whoever it is off with a ‘don't worry about it’ when for the first time she catches sight of him. Green scales in place of skin immediately giving away the species. 

Her stomach drops.

The stool lets out an ear piercing screech as Alex violently scoots away.

“D-don’t touch me!” she hisses, an arm held out in front of her.

The alien frowns “I said my apologies”

Alex scoffs, her fists once again clenched, however, this time it's to hide the fact that they were trembling “Not even a little bit” she says, every cell in her body feeling as if they chose differently in the ‘flight or fight’ reaction.

The alien glances towards Maggie for help before casting Alex an uneasy look “I’m not sure that I understand”

“I know who you are” she spits in disgust, There's a hand on her shoulder but she quickly shakes it off.

“You seem to be an imbalanced individual” says the alien before turning to walk away.

“The Medal Mint right?” grits out Alex, causing the alien to stop in his tracks and cautiously turn back around to face her “That's where you got that shiny rock hanging from your neck. But by the looks of the cut I'm guessing that you didn’t get it through any official channels”

The alien freezes, a scaly hand coming up to grasp at the delicate pendant “It was a  _ gift _ . Whatever it is that's happening over there is frankly none of my business-”

Alex’s jaw rolls.

“-and from what I've heard they aren’t treated so badly”

“No?”

He shrugs “I mean, it's just little hard work, right-?”

_ Wrong answer _ .

Alex slams her fist into his jaw.

It all happens at once, there is a startled  yelp from the bartender and Alex suddenly finds herself restrained by the now furious alien, face pressed down against the wooden bar top.

Her hand shoots out, reaching for Maggie’s empty whiskey glass before smashing it into the alien's head. He’s suddenly on his back and she's on top, fists raging, fuelled by fear and hate. 

She pulls her arm back once more.

“- _ Stop _ !” shouts Maggie, suddenly appearing in the path of her fist.

Maggie quickly catches Alex’s fist before it can make contact and uses the moment to drag her up and away from the alien.

"NCPD I've got this” announces Maggie with a flash of her badge before pulling Alex outside.

She rounds on her furious “What the hell was that about?!”

“Nothing, it was nothing” says Alex, eyes fixed on the ground and the small droplets of blood dripping onto it.

Maggie runs a hand through her hair frustrated “It obviously wasn’t  _ nothing _ , you attacked him completely unprovoked!” There's a slight tremor in Maggie’s voice, fear.

Alex feels a churning in her stomach, unable to tell if the fear was for her or  _ towards _ her.

She clenches her jaw, trying instead to focus on the tiny shards of glass sticking out of her trembling palms, rather than the thought that Maggie might actually be  _ scared of her _ .

But then again, It's not like she didn't have every right to be.

“Are you ok?” asks Maggie watching Alex carefully, all traces of anger gone.

She takes a step forward and Alex immediately takes one backwards, her mind screaming  _ that she scared Maggie _ .

Was Maggie scared that  _ she _ was going to hurt  _ her _ ?

Alex takes another step back “I need- i just need some space ok, i need some air… Just-” she shakes her head cutting herself off before quickly stalking off  before Maggie can follow.

 

###

The sun is just beginning to set as Alex pushes open her apartment door. It closes with a gentle click. 

“You know i hated you for a little bit”

Alex flinches at the sudden, hollow confession from the couch.

“For disappearing that is” continues Maggie staring blankly into the fireplace “But then i just ended up hating myself even more for hating you” she gives a wet chuckle before finally turning to face Alex, still stood by the door.

“I spent  _ months  _ blaming myself, why didn't I agree with Kara? Why didn't i help you? Because if i had… then maybe you would have still been here instead of someplace light-years away?.

Maggie shakes her head self deprecatingly “I’d always thought that if i had went with you, that if i had  _ insisted _ then maybe i could have stopped it, or at least i would have been there with you”

“I would never have wished that on you” says Alex firmly “The  _ only  _ reason i survived was because of you”

“No, you survived because of you Alex, because you’re a fighter, a survivor and the strongest person i have ever met” Alex sits down beside Maggie on the couch “I guess I just wished that I had gotten the chance to say goodbye”

“Now you don't need to” says Alex softly over the crackling of the fireplace.

Maggie smiles sadly “No, I don't” her hand inches slowly towards Alex’s own before Alex closes the gap, fingers intertwined.

“I'm sorry about earlier”

“it's ok” whispers Maggie resting her head against Alex’s shoulder.

Alex sighs “No, it's not”

Maggie lets out a gentle chuckle before agreeing “Not really”

The fireplace casts shadows over the furniture of the rapidly darkening apartment. Alex shifts in her seat eyeing the singular lit lamp struggling to illuminate the apartment, her skin feels like it’s crawling, she shifts again.

“Do you want to turn the lights on?” asks Maggie softly.

Alex nods wordless and tries not to look overly eager as she jumps up to switch on the lights, she lets out an exhale as light floods the apartment.

She feels pathetic, she needs to explain, she wants to.

Alex sits back down her hands fidgeting in her lap “I, um, i managed to get my hands on a ship, it was small but i... ran out of fuel” She swallows blinking away the memories “It felt like  _ years _ just floating in empty space on this tiny ship waiting for someone,  _ something  _ to come along. I don’t know how long it was, there was no day, no night just this  _ darkness  _ a-and silence _ ”  _ She runs a hand through her hair “I mean i started off ok, but then it got… less ok. I have these... gaps i don't remember a lot of it, I just remember that it was dark” She laughs self deprecatingly “I know it’s stupid, that  _ still  _ i- i still just..” she trails off.

There’s a gentle hand under her chin encouraging her to lift her head “Hey, it’s not stupid,  _ nothing  _ you feel is stupid” Alex searches Maggie’s eyes meticulously, trying to find any hint untruth in her words “You’re safe now, you came back. All the odds were stacked against you and you still came back. I’m proud of you Alex” 

_ Proud, not scared. _

“And you know what?”

“What?” whispers Alex.

“We’ll leave the lights on” says Maggie a cupping her cheek “we’ll leave  _ all  _ of them on if that’s what you need, and we’ll blast music so that it’s never quiet again”

“What song?” murmurs Alex, relieved wetness gathering in the corner of her eyes.

“All of them Danvers, all of them”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note, there might be fic name change between this chapter and the next one so keep your eyes open for that.


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it's been a while huh?

“So, uh… i need a favour” starts Alex, hand frozen mid-knock above a familiar pale door. 

There’s a bottle of red wine held loosely in Maggie’s left hand, her right intertwined with Alex’s own. Alex eyes the large bottle, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards in slight amusement. Kara hadn’t asked that they bring anything, however Alex was sure that even if she had that a near litre of  _ Pinot noir _ was slightly overkill.

It, unfortunately, had been the only untouched beverage in the entire apartment, a sympathetic sorry-your-girlfriend-was-flung-out-into-space handout no doubt.

It had probably seemed like bad luck to open it at the time. Maggie, regardless of all the vehement protesting in the world, seemed prone to slight superstition at times.   

Alex smothers a gentle smile, remembering one particular incident involving a broken mirror that had Maggie mumbling about ‘Catholic upbringings’ and ‘feral black cats named Diablo’. 

“Sure, what do you need?”

The memory melts and falls away, the amusement falling along with it as she’s thrust back into the empty hallway. Alex swallows, silent, allowing the faint tendrils of conversation that drift across from behind the worn wood to wash over her.

There’s a loud squeal followed by a buoyant bark of laughter. Alex lowers her fist from the door, turning hesitantly to meet Maggie’s patient gaze. 

“I need you to look up a name”

A small furrow appears between Maggie’s brows “Ok… Are you going to tell me what for?”

“It's…” Alex exhales, long and slow “i promised a friend that I would do something” it’s vague, she knows it is, but it's all that she can manage right now “I promised that I would look out for somebody for them”

Maggie nods, seeming to accept the ambiguous answer at face value. She pulls out her phone, silently and without question “What's the name?”

“Strayd, Bastian Strayd”

The sound of rapid typing ceases as Maggie’s fingers still “Strayd” she repeats slowly, realisation dawning on her features “Any relation to Lyra?”

Alex nods, once and stiff, eyes fixed on the ground.

There’s a gentle hand at her chin coaxing her head up, she meets Maggie’s tender gaze, chest tight “I’ll get that information for you Alex”. 

“Thank you” 

The door in front of them suddenly swings open, a forceful burst of air accompanying the inhumanly rapid swivel. 

“Alex! Maggie! What are you guys doing standing out here like limes?” squeals Kara from the doorway, almost vibrating with excitement. She gestures them in with a half-eaten bear claw “get in here”.

“ _ Lemons _ Kara, I keep telling you that it's lemons” huffs Maggie, fond exasperation in her tone.

Kara rolls her eyes, all but dragging them into the apartment and Alex finds herself gathered up into an overly tight hug almost as soon as she crosses the threshold.

She’s not quite able to mask her instinctive flinch.

James quickly pulls back, apologetic  “Sorry, I did mean to jump at you like that. I just.. I'm really glad you're back Alex” genuineness coats his warm tone and Alex feels her body begin to relax “the place hasn't been the same without you”

A surprisingly organic smile works its way onto Alex’s face. She reaches out, giving his shoulder a soft squeeze “it's good to be back”

James smiles, wide and pearly before handing her a beer and lowering himself down onto the couch. Alex sits down beside him, watching on in amusement as Winn greets Maggie with what seems to be their own handshake. The whole ordeal takes about two minutes, Winn set on making them redo the  _ entire  _ thing every time Maggie messes up.

Alex snorts into her bottle, and Maggie had called  _ her _ a nerd.

“They’re pretty close nowadays” chuckles James following her eyeline “sometimes it feels like he should be her sidekick” he says, purposefully emphasizing the final part for the duo in question to hear.

Winn turns, outrage on his face and an accusing finger pointed down at James “I heard that Olsen”

The whole couch seems to bounce as Kara plops herself down beside Alex, leaving her squished painfully between the girl of steel and the man of muscle, another doughnut in her hand.

“It’s true” says Kara, taking a bite out of the sugary pastry “they’ve even got the whole secret handshake thing going on,  _ i _ never got a secret handshake”

Maggie grimaces at Kara’s unnecessary display of digestion while Winn scoffs beside her “You too, really? You know who doesn’t treat me like this?  _ Maggie _ ”

James shakes his head “There you go again…”

Alex closes her eyes, blinking long and slow and just letting the voices wash over her. She takes a breath, savouring the moment, savouring being  _ present  _ in the moment, something that only a few months ago had seemed like an impossibility.

She’s lost count of all the hours and days that she’d spent  _ aching  _ for this, for even just the  _ sound  _ of everyone squabbling and acting a quarter their age. The very same thing that once would have had her rolling her eyes and plotting her escape suddenly felt like enough to bring her to tears.

“..Kara please close your mouth”

“Nuh-uh, my house my rules..”

Here, in this moment, it was almost as if she could pretend that nothing had happened, no exodus ships, prisons or scars, just a normal night in at Kara’s. 

“..I’m sorry Kara but i’m with Maggie on this one and i’d much rather keep my lunch in my stomach thank you very much”

“Well of course  _ you  _ would be..”

The illusion, however, begins to shatter as the they start to talk back forth about things that Alex doesn’t understand, inside jokes she doesn't get, pop culture references that go over her head.

Her confusion must show as Kara turns to her, the smile slowly melting from her face.

“Oh, uh Lena brought Catco, she doesn't know that I'm Supergirl so things are a little” she makes a face “awkward”

“A  _ lot  _ awkward” interjects James “the excuses that I have to come up with for you always leaving are getting worse and worse”

Kara winces “Yeah they really are, we really have to work on that” she sighs, throwing her head backwards in a dramatic display of exhaustion “I miss the days with Miss Grant where I was practically invisible”

James and Winn both hum in agreement while Alex picks aimlessly at the label of her beer, withdrawing and suddenly feeling out of place.

Kara plants her hands onto her knees, standing “well enough of that, we need to start the binge watching!”

“Please no more reruns of The Golden Girls” groans Maggie “there’s only so much elderly women a person can take”

James winces “Sorry Kara but i’m going to have to second that”

Kara’s eyes narrow, shooting them both mock glares “lucky for you guys and your terribly bad taste I'm letting Alex choose”

“Oooh Alex, you’ve gotta choose Shawshank” gasps Winn in excitement “it’s a classic and i was just thinking about it the other day...”

Kara nudges him, cutting him off with an anxious look.

His eyes widen “Ah, unless of course you don't want to what with the whole prison thing, though I'm sure your whole Shawshank-esque thing was pretty epic”

He’s rewarded with a quite literal steel toed kick from Kara.

“Right” he rasps, face blanched in pain “I’ll just shut up now”

The corner of Alex’s mouth tugs upwards into a half smile “epic? Not so much, I was pretty useless, it was your girlfriend that did all the work and never let me forget it”

Winn freezes, dark eyebrows drawing together “I thought..” his voice breaks, a deep crack down the middle “I thought you said that Lyra died inside the prison” 

Alex stares at him, her brain not yet comprehending the unexpected reaction.

And then it hits her.

Her stomach drops.

_ Fuck. _

“I.. i did, she  _ did _ ” Alex stutters out, a tight band strapping itself to her chest.

Winn shakes his head, absolute betrayal and  _ hurt  _ etched into his features “You're lying to me, you'd lie to my face like that?”

The band tugs and burns against her chest, taking her words and replacing them with choked half-syllables “Winn I...” a sadistic slideshow of images roll to the forefront of her mind, a permanent capture of nightmarish scenes that she would give  _ anything  _ to forget.

She swallows trying to blink them away.

“Alex? What happened? Is she still alive?”

It’s the hope in his voice that’s worse than anything else. Hate she could take, tears she would face and fists, well they would be welcomed open armed. But what she couldn’t take, what she  _ couldn’t  _ do was destroy his hope.

She was a monster.

“She died Winn” the words scratch as they climb up out of her throat, jagged and thorned.

“B-but not in the prison? Alex i don’t.. i don’t understand why would you tell me that she did?”

She can’t talk about this, she can barely  _ think  _ about it “because that’s not what’s important Winn and Lyra, she wouldn’t want you to dwell on it”

“You lied to me Alex, you’re still lying to me! So don’t you dare tell me about what my girlfriend would want”

Her eyes burn, the images relentless, her head pounding, chest aching.

“I did it for you!” she explodes, looking up at Winn, needing him to believe her “i lied because i wanted to protect you from the truth, because it’s not something that you can  _ ever  _ take back and you were better off not knowing” her gaze rips away from Winn to fall on the other occupants of the room all stood stiffly with various degrees of agitation on their faces.

“You’re all better off not knowing so please just  _ stop  _ asking me” her voice splinters and she’s not sure whether or not she imagines the tear that trails down Kara’s cheek

“Who the hell gives you the right to decide that!” roars Winn the sheer anger in his voice causing even Maggie to flinch.

“Winn you need to calm down” says Maggie, voice firm.

It’s her fault, she did this, she did  _ this _ .

Alex shakes her head, her head falling to her hand “I can’t, not right now” 

Winn shudders wet and painful “What happened to my girlfriend Alex?” 

She opens her mouth, eyes squeezed shut as the words tumble out, a panicked rush. 

“We escaped the prison a group of us and yes the prison did blow up i didn’t lie about that. There was a civil war and it was  _ bad _ so we smuggled ourselves off world with a group of refugees but it, it was the worst of conditions and i got sick,  _ really  _ sick” 

Alex inhales, sharp and shuddering, her voice thin and strained.

“Turns out our hosts had gotten a better offer and sold us off to slavers. Lyra and i, we were the planet’s equivalent to miners” she doesn’t realise that she’s crying until she feels a small splash against her cheek “there were shifts and i was meant to be keeping watch but i was, i was  _ so _ sick and then there was a landslide and the tunnel collapsed. Lyra managed to escape with the others but the guards came and they were out for blood” 

Alex takes a deep breath, slowing her rapid heart-rate, feeling nauseous, guilty and breathless all at once.

Lyra told them that she’d been the one keeping watch, i don’t know i guess she thought that she was just going to get the usual punishment like we always did.

She lifts her head, knowing that as painful as it was that she  _ had  _ to look Winn in the eye for what she was about to say next, she owed him that much.

Alex swallows “They buried a pickaxe in her chest and kicked her off of the side of a cliff. She was my friend Winn, if it hadn’t been for her i would have been dead a  _ thousand  _ times over”

Winn pales, staring at her horrified with wide wet eyes.

“I didn’t tell you because i can’t think about it Winn” Alex chokes out, eyes pleading,  _ begging  _ for him to understand “I wasn’t trying to hurt you but I  _ can’t  _ keep reliving it”

A hand snaps to Winn's mouth before he runs into the bathroom, the painful sounds of dry heaving following him, James goes after him, eyes red and expression strained.

Alex’s head drops back down into her hands, her breaths coming out rapid and hitched.

There’s a comforting hand on her back, she flinches against it.

“Alex-”

“Don’t.. Please don’t” she doesn’t want Maggie’s comfort, she doesn’t want anyone’s pity or support or anything else that they think that she deserves, she can’t take it, not right not “I just want to go home, please”

“Ok”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I've answered some questions, leave a comment make my day so that the next update wont be too far away!


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve added a moderate violence warning for this fic, mainly for the start of the next chapter but i guess also for the 2nd half of this one. Also, the 9 chapters is just an estimate subject to change so take that with a pinch of salt.
> 
> Anyway.. onward to part 6, the chapter of obnoxious (read: pretentious) run on sentences!

Her arms shriek at her to stop, a pungent ocean of lactic acid drowning the strained and fraught cells lining her bicep. Her muscles burn and cramp, screaming about things like ‘limits’ that had been long since passed.

Frivolous things.

Her eyes narrow, determined and purposeful, fixed on the swaying bag in front of her. It’s a blur of movement, distorted by the sweat stinging her eyes.

Her fists, wrapped and balled beat out a rapid fire pulse against the heavy bag, a methodical series of jabs pounding like a violent heartbeat, one fueled by pain and guilt. It was a release that felt as much of an relief as it did a punishment.

The sharp pull of scar tissue breaks Alex out of her resolute single-mindedness. Her rhythm falters, the uniform and almost robotic strikes losing their precision and speed as a wince is pulled from her throat.

She grits her teeth, continuing on against it, resolve slipping piece by piece as Maggie’s face is suddenly thrown to the forefront of her mind. The horrified expression on her girlfriend’s face branded into her memory.

Maggie had been horrified at the sight of her back.

_Jab._

Disgusted with the unobstructed view of her scars.

_Cross._

Sickened.

_Hook._

Grief-stricken.

_Overhand._

All feelings that, as painful as it was, Alex knew Maggie had every right to feel. All feelings that Alex knew she herself  _should_ feel towards the long, thin and raised pink scars criss-crossing the expanse of her back.

A jab-uppercut combo entropies into a mess of aggravated fists.

Except she  _couldn’t_ , she couldn’t hate them, she couldn’t despise or even detest them. At least not entirely, not when she could trace her fingers over the raised lines and feel even the tiniest spark of connection. Each lashing holding a painful story inscribed into her skin like braille. Pages to a sadistic book that could never be read in its entirety, not anymore, not when the words that started on her back ended on another's.

Her patchwork of scars had been one of a pair, Lyra’s back having held an almost perfect replica, a missing burn over Alex’s scapula the only thing differentiating them.

A growl slips out of Alex’s throat, damp strands of hair fall over her eyes as she swings into a pivot, her entire body weight thrown into the punch.

It would be so  _easy_ to hate them, so  _uncomplicated_ to feel the way that Maggie felt towards the rough lines of scar tissue. Except, Maggie didn’t have to live day in, day out with the excruciating memory of a woman who, despite the hell they’d both been through had  _always_ had her back.

Even when Alex hadn’t, when she’d been helpless, standing by uselessly, just  _watching_ as her ally and friend was brutally and thoughtlessly murdered.

Even then Lyra had had her back.

So maybe it was poetic or just the universe’s sick sense of retribution that after a too-near brush with a laser gun Alex was left, quite literally, with Lyra’s back.

It was sick.

It was the only thing she had left.

Alex doesn’t notice that her fists have stilled until the gentle creak of the chain suspending the heavy bag reaches her ears. She reaches out a gloved hand, bringing the swaying bag to a complete stop.

“Five years and I don’t think I've ever seen you drill like that”

She whips around, startled at the sudden, unexpected voice and is met with the sight of J’onn leant against the door-frame, arms crossed. There’s a towel draped over one of his boulder-like shoulders and a bottle of water gripped in his left hand.

Alex frowns, the idea of having been watched while completely unaware not sitting well with her. “It was sloppy” she says stonily, ripping off her gloves “It  _got_ sloppy”

J’onn raises a brow “It got passionate”

“Which gets you killed” Alex volleys back, teeth clenched against the faint flush rising up the back of her neck, an embarrassment born from both anger at losing control and shame at being  _caught_ losing control. “You were the one that taught me that”

“And i was proved wrong the very day Supergirl's passion ended up freeing the city of Myriad’s control” he responds.

“Supergirl can get away with it” says Alex, tugging at the white tape wound tightly around her fists “ _i can’t_ ”

J’onn hums, low and resonating, his expression unreadable. Alex tears her eyes away from his gaze, uneased and feeling oddly vulnerable. There’s an awkward beat before J’onn steps forward, a slow, steady movement, holding out his hands and offering both the towel and water bottle. Alex takes both items with a quiet thank you.

“I used to spend a lot of time in a room like this when i first started the DEO” begins J’onn, gazing around the dusky room, a reminiscent expression clouding his features. “Countless hours, i had a lot of anger and guilt to work through and meditating wasn’t always enough”

Alex screws the lid back onto the plastic bottle, eyebrows raised “I can’t picture you meditating”

J’onn’s mouth curls upwards into a faint smile “you’d be surprised” he says, before resuming his quiet regard of the training room.

A split silence descends upon the room, one that J’onn, on the one hand, seems to be comfortably basking in while Alex, on the other, is left shuffling awkwardly, seemingly taken by a sudden interest in her shoe laces. She swallows nervously, searching for the words that J’onn—if his continued presence was anything to go by— seemed to be waiting for.

Alex sighs, gripping onto the single grain of courage that she manages to conjure up “I’m sorry that i didn’t come and see you after the briefing… or at all really”

J’onn frowns, a rare look of surprise on his face, strong enough for Alex to begin to question whether she had, in fact, read his intentions wrong.

He wasn’t here for an explanation?          

“You don’t have anything to apologise for”

“No, i think i do” starts Alex, meeting J’onn’s benevolent gaze.

J’onn, the father figure her heart had  _ached_ for for most of her youth and beyond. The director who had taken her in, building her up from rock bottom, treating her as his very own. The Martian who, as stated by Maggie, did absolutely  _everything_ in his power and then some to find her, all the while having stood firm as a shoulder for both Kara to cry on and a weary Supergirl to lean on.

J’onn, the very person who Alex couldn’t even bring herself to say ‘hello’ to.

So yeah, she did have something to apologise for.

“I’ve been avoiding you and you don’t deserve that” says Alex, before letting out a frustrated sigh “I just… i mean, i don’t know, it just feels like all i know how to do anymore is push people away. Winn, Kara,  _Maggie_ even, its like the more i try…” she shakes her head, trailing off into a chagrined silence.

There’s a hand on her shoulder, warm and grounding “You’ve been through a lot Alex, they understand that”

She pulls away with a firm shake of her head “they shouldn’t have to!”

J’onn’s expression remains steady, seemingly unfazed by the unintentional outburst. Alex looks away, taking a deep breath before speaking once again, a slight tremble in her tone the only thing betraying the precarious grip she had on her composure.

“I always thought that when i came home.. i mean, compared to everything else that it’d be a walk in the park. I spent so long just moving from planet to planet, place to place trying  _desperately_ to get home but, now that i’m actually here...” Alex shrugs picking at the wrapping covering her hands “i don’t know, sometimes it just feels like all I've managed to do is hop to another completely alien planet”

She lets out a self deprecating chuckle “But there’s no place like home right?”

J’onn sighs, his expression one of grave understanding. A sapient look clouds his eyes, unfamiliar and ancient, a crack in his usually impenetrable armour allowing Alex a glimpse into the centuries old creature hidden beneath the skin of Hank Henshaw.

The Martian who had watched his entire world burn.

“Alex Danvers, believe me when i tell you that coming home is one of the hardest things you can ever do”

 

###

 

The street lights cast a yellow-orange glare over the docks. The tired bulbs buzz and flicker, struggling against the thick darkness that oozed across the vast maze of rusty shipping containers. Shadows grow and elongate as the darkness congeals even further, the passing of minutes like hours to the dark figure hunched behind a corrugated container, body poised and tense, adrenaline coiled in their veins.

Alex reaches into her pocket, taking comfort in the familiar feel of crinkled paper against her fingertips. A note, read, reread and then read again until the single address scrawled across it was singed into her memory, the recited words rolling off of her tongue with as much ease as her own name.

Her grip tightens on the NCPD issued gun in her hand, the cold metal biting into her scarred and calloused palm.

A gentle click signifies the removal of a safety lock.

Lyra hadn’t had a picture—literally couldn't have had she’d finally explained one night slumped against a cell wall—instead, she had spent the monotonous and often daunting hours painting an exhaustive and meticulous picture of her younger brother.  A precise mental image along with a choked out promise, an assurance, just in case she wasn’t able to make it back.

Alex had protested vehemently, shaking her head while filling Lyra’s own with false promises of how it would never have to come to that.

Her finger ghosts over the trigger, eyes closing as she counts the pounding beats of her heart, the muscle thudding with an intensity she could almost hear, racing not in fear but with suspense, impatient anticipation of what was to come.

The masked group in front of her talk amongst themselves, a low muttering that carries all the way over to her position hidden behind the shipping container. They stand laughing, six of them stood completely unaware of their fate, towering over a bound and gagged figure sprawled across the damp floor.

Bastian.

Alex clenches her jaw, pulling an EMP out from her pocket—an undisclosed  _donation_ from the DEO—and turns it over in her hands.

_Footsteps._

Alex’s eyes narrow, her ears straining as they take in the uneven gait scraping across the floor.

‘Bum knee’ had moved four steps to the left.

She swallows, taking a deep breath before removing the handgun’s magazine and painstakingly counting each bullet.

Maybe Maggie would forgive her for this one day.

She slides the magazine back in with a gentle click.

But until then.

The EMP plunges the entire dock into darkness.

_Six._

“What the he-?!”

Alex springs up, squeezing the trigger twice into the thick darkness. There’s a pained groan followed by the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the ground.

_Five._

She bursts into a sprint, jumping up at an angle before kicking off of the steel container she knows is to her left, twisting into a forceful roundhouse kick. Her leg comes down with a crack, landing hard against the head of ‘bum knee’.

He goes down without a sound.

_Four._

“What was that?!”

“Open fire!”

Alex hisses out a curse, grabbing a pistol off of ‘bum knee’s’ motionless body before diving behind a tractor crane, taking cover just in time to watch the darkness fracture and explode, lighting up like a sudden firework display.

The crane rattles and clangs as bullets spray over the weathered metal.

Assault rifles, more specifically M4’s. She’d seen the remaining four parade around with the semi-automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, growling threats at a defenseless and battered Bastian.

The crane groans, buckling under the overpowered assault.

Standard magazines, she’d seen at least two of those.

Standard magazines, thirty rounds each.

Eight hundred and twenty-five rounds a minute.

Alex twirls the police issue glock around her index finger thoughtfully, ‘bum knee’s’ pistol tucked into her waistband.

Thirteen point seven-five rounds a second.

Which meant that shooting the way they were..

3...

In single, ill-advised and uninterrupted bursts..

2...

They had to have roughly, somewhere around..

1…

 _Silence_   _._

Zero rounds left.

_Click._

Alex snorts, shaking her head with an almost disappointed sigh.  _Amateurs_.

She leaps out from behind the large crane wheel, spotting one of the masked men struggle to pull a pistol out from his holster, she aims a bullet into his leg.

He collapses with a strangled scream.

_Three._

The remaining two scatter behind faded shipping containers, taking cover as they aim retaliatory shots back at her, wielding almost identical pistols.

The two.

Two?

She had lost one.

A gun is suddenly pressed to the back of Alex’s head, cold and bruising “on your knees, right now!”

Alex rolls her eyes, letting out an annoyed huff. A double tap to the back of the skull,  _just_ what she needed.

The man behind her growls, a tinny, echoing sound that has Alex wondering whether or not he’s actually human. The muzzle of his gun jabs into the back of her head threateningly, effectively halting her extraterrestrial assessment.

“You want to keep that pretty little head of yours? Drop your gun and get onto your knees!”

Alex grudgingly obeys, options slowly dwindling as her gun reluctantly slips from her grip. The two men from earlier creep out from behind a row of shipping containers, guns drawn and trained on her.

Kara was going to kill her, if these goons didn’t beat her to it that was.

“Who the hell are you, a cop?”

Alex raises her hands in surrender, slowly placing them behind her head “I’m not a cop”

“Then who the fuck are you! Who sent you?!"

“ _Shoot_ her boss!”

She shakes her head “It’s nothing personal, just a favour for a friend”

“Wha-?”

Alex spins, throwing out an elbow and knocking the pistol from her would-be assassins hands. She jumps to her feet and in one fluid motion has him trapped in a chokehold, facing the two men in front of her.

His lackeys shake their guns at her nervously.

“You really that think you can pull off a clean shot?” Alex asks with an incredulous chuckle “go ahead, shoot your boss. It’d make my job a hell of a lot easier”

“Shoot her you idi-!”

‘Bum knee’s’ pistol is quickly whipped from her waistband and in less than a second is squeezing two bullets into each lackey’s leg.

_One._

The butt of the pistol cracks against the head of the alien struggling in Alex’s grip. He crumples to the ground clutching his bleeding head with a groan.

“Please don’t kill me, please i-i’ll do  _anything_ ”

Alex clenches her jaw, circling him slowly “did Bastian beg? Did you laugh when he did? Call him pathetic?”

The supposed ringleader swallows, glancing at his writhing associates, horror in his eyes “you’re a psychopath” he whispers, voice quivering.

“No” snarls Alex, crouching down beside him, her gun inches away from his face ”because unlike  _you_  i don’t prey on the desperate and defenseless”

The alien lets out a hysterical laugh, crimson stained teeth bared. His eyes gleam with a terrified and slightly manic expression “because i’m  _armed_  right?”

Alex swallows, her fists clenching as her gun presses closer to him, seemingly of its own accord.

_Sirens._

She jerks back, the sound of approaching police sirens kicking Alex back into action. She turns, breaking into a sprint and running over to where Bastian had last been.

He flinches away from her, trembling “w-who are you?”

Alex kneels beside him, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small, delicate chain “your sister sent me” says Alex, throat dry.

Bastian’s eyes widen and glisten, pupils fixed upon the golden necklace spiraled in her hand.

The sound of sirens increase in volume.

She pulls out a knife, her actions slow and purposeful as not to startle him “I’m going to cut you loose, ok?”

Bastian nods silently, unable to tear his gaze away from the item clasped in Alex’s gentle grip.

“You.. you knew my sister?” he croaks out, watching stock still and almost in shock as Alex carefully transfers the necklace to his newly freed hands.

“I did”

“So it’s true? Sh-she’s really gone?”

Alex looks away, a shuddering exhale escaping her lips “I’m so sorry”

The roar of sirens becomes almost deafening.

“Lyra’s address” starts Alex, her tone growing urgent “do you know it”

“Yeah, i mean… i think”

“You need to go there, right now. The police are coming and you can’t get caught up in this, i won’t let you get caught up in this”

Bastian frowns, shaking his head as he’s helped up “wait, what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me” says Alex “you need to go”

He chews at the inside of his cheek, reluctant, before dipping his head and letting out a whispered “thank you” scurrying off into the darkness with a pronounced limp.

Alex watches him disappear deep into the bowels of the docks before sighing. Her shoulders slump resigned as she drops the knife in her hands, kicking it, along with her gun, across the ground.

This would buy Bastian an half hour at best.

It would have to be enough.

“NCPD! Hands behind your head!”


	7. Part Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe me if i told you that it does get better for Alex at some point? Also, I've been having some trouble typing recently (hence all the delays) RSI's are no fun.

_Her fingers relax and fan out, gliding through the warm fluid pooled atop the rocky floor. Alex lets out a contented sigh, shoulders slumping as she revels in the thick warmth coating her skin. The heat was a welcomed contrast, an oasis in the frost encrusted planet._

_Her eyelids droop and sag, powerless to do anything but blink slowly as the world begins to disintegrate into a haze of blurs and soft edges. Kara would like it here, she thinks. For all her talk about superior Kryptonian DNA her sister was like a_ _reptile_ _when it came to heat, stealing blankets and hot water bottles like a bandit._

_There’s a gentle gurgling coming from the somewhere near her feet. Alex squints, forcing the green haze into focus. The blob sharpens, taking form to reveal an alien, green and scaly and lying face up at her feet. The warm fluid bubbles up out of of its mouth, dark and viscous._

_The fluid traces a sticky path down its angular jaw, dribbling down onto the unyielding ground with a splash and pooling beneath a deep, jagged slit in its neck._

_Alex stares blankly, watching on with an almost disinterested expression as the alien lets out a low whine, the laceration across its neck spurting out quick, concentrated jets of warmth._

_There’s a reel of fragmented memories running through her mind, browned and atrophied like stills from an old movie. The gruesome slideshow of images repeat and rewind, pieces to a vital puzzle that Alex knows she should be able to piece together but finds she can’t quite. Familiar faces woven in with unfamiliar feelings flash by._

_Lyra, fury._

_The alien at her feet, retribution._

_Kara, guilt._

_It’s so warm here._

_The alien at her feet twitches twice before stilling completely, its deep orange eyes now a cloudy, vacant white._

_There’s something in her hand._

_She traces the warm, dark stain running down her forearm with her index finger. The marks smear and elongate, her finger a dexterous paintbrush gliding over her skin before finally reaching a jagged, glass-like rock clutched tightly in her fist._

_It slips from her shaky grip._

_Her mind, a roulette of violent, senseless memories, begins to spin faster._

_Lyra, grief._

_The alien at her feet, hate._

_Kara, shame._

_Where was everyone? Why wasn’t she at her post?_

_Lyra, agony._

_The alien at her feet, wrath._

_Kara,_ _mortification_ _._

_Alex pulls herself to her feet, her limbs an unsteady mess of panic and confusion. She takes a step and stumbles, falling onto a yielding surface with a nauseating squelch._

_“Sorry” she mumbles, pulling herself up off of the alien she had fallen on, green and scaly and almost identical in appearance to the other._

_The alien doesn’t respond, its cloudy eyes fixed upwards. There’s a deep slice across its abdomen, a serrated kangaroo pouch spilling both warm liquids and fleshy solids all over the ground._

_She gags, stumbling away and nearly falling again as she trips on something soft that bursts under her foot. The floor, a messy maze of_ _mutilated_ _alien bodies begins to sway, her vision faltering._

_Lyra, heartbreak._

_The alien at her feet, rage_

_Kara,_ _regret_ _._

_Maggie, disgust._

###

 

She fucked up.

That much is made clear by the draughty NCPD cell that Alex is currently occupying. However, on the off chance that there’s any doubt in her mind, the fact that no one has come for her yet pretty much seals the deal.

It’s been nearly an hour since Alex was read her rights and carted off in a grimy police cruiser and all that she is certain of is that she’s fucked up.

She would do it again in a heartbeat.

The fluorescent ceiling lights hum intermittently, it’s a grating, unpredictable sound that annoys her more than it should. Alex sighs, sitting down on the narrow cot squished into the corner of the cell. She stares at an old yellowing stain on the sheets with a grimace.

How long were they going to keep her in here?

Footsteps.

Alex quickly springs to her feet. She grips the iron bars while straining her neck to the side, trying to get a glance at the person coming down the corridor.

It’s Maggie who comes to a stop in front of the dreary cell. Her expression is blank, devoid of the scorching anger that Alex had been expecting, hoping for even. Anger was something that she could deal with, could grin and bear. This quiet disappointment, however, was something completely unfamiliar.

Maggie sighs, her rigid posture slumping with exhaustion. She looks up at Alex and shrugs, everything about her presence screaming defeat “I’ve come up empty” she lets out a hollow chuckle “I spent the last half hour trying to come up with some sort of _reasoning_ some sort of magical excuse that would make what you did ok and logical, and i’ve come up empty”

Alex swallows “Look Maggie--”

“You took my gun?” interrupts Maggie, disbelief and hurt clouding her expression “do you have any _idea_ how that makes me look? What it could have meant for me?”

She fights the urge to look away, the utter betrayal in Maggie’s voice sitting uncomfortably in her stomach “I’m sorry”

“How am i meant to know if you mean that Alex?” says Maggie, her eyes searching Alex’s desperately “I can’t.. I can’t even read you anymore”

Alex looks to the ground.

Maggie’s voice softens “just tell me what happened, talk to me _please_ ” 

“I made a promise to Lyra, i promised her that i would help her brother” she looks up, eyes damp “I promised her that everything would be ok and then I broke it when i stood by and let her die” Alex’s face crumples before she quickly composes herself, her voice empty “i couldn’t break another one”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” whispers Maggie, her fingers brushing over Alex’s which were still gripping the bars “or to the police? We can deal with that sort of thing and we can do it safely”

Alex moves her fingers away, shaking her head “I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk Bastian getting caught up in the middle of a firefight”

“Which isn’t exactly what you did?” says Maggie “I've seen the pictures Alex, you turned the docks into a  _war-zone_ ”

“I made a promise and i kept it”

“No, you played vigilante. You could have gotten him killed”

Alex clenches her jaw “I saved his life”

“And what about yours?!” snaps Maggie

The room plunges into silence. Maggie inhales sharply, seemingly stunned at her own outburst. She takes a deep breath before starting again, her voice strained with the effort it takes to keep it steady.

“What if you had been killed Alex? What then? What about Kara and J’onn and your mom and all these people who _love_ and _care_ for you and have only just gotten you back? Don’t they mean anything to you?” desperation splinters Maggie’s voice. She flattens her lips, a single, salty track working its way down her cheek.

“What about me?”

Something shatters in Alex’s chest.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you, i never wanted to hurt you”

“I know that, of _course_ i know that Al. But what hurts you hurts me, and this?” She gestures around the cell “look at where you are Alex, don’t for a minute tell me that this isn’t hurting you. I look at you and all i see is pain and hurt and loneliness staring back at me and there is nothing i can do to stop it. That _hurts_ ”

_Lyra, heartbreak._

_Kara,_ _regret_ _._

_Maggie, guilt._

Alex’s shoulders slump, a bone deep exhaustion catching up to her “I can’t apologise for what i did”

“You put four men in the hospital Alex” says Maggie

Alex grits her teeth “I didn’t kill anyone, i made sure of it”

_The alien at her feet twitches twice before stilling completely, its deep orange eyes now a cloudy, vacant white._

“Two of them are in the _ICU_ , they could die”

_The fluid traces a sticky path down its angular jaw, dribbling down onto the unyielding ground with a splash and pooling beneath a deep, jagged slit in its neck._

_There’s something in her hand._

“They would deserve it!” she snarls.

“That isn’t for you to decide” says Maggie. She frowns taking a step back and for the first time since Alex returned looks at her without even a hint of recognition in her pained gaze. “This isn’t you”

“Except, this is me, _all of it_ ” hisses Alex, with a vehement intensity that causes Maggie to flinch, as if the words had been an actual physical strike.

“I don’t know how to help you Alex, because you won’t _let_ anyone help you”

Her fists shake as she shoves them deep into her pockets, her gaze fixed stonily on a spot just left of Maggie’s head.

Maggie nods, her posture rigid “I think I'll leave you alone to cool off for a bit before your government buddies come up with whatever bullshit cover story they’re working on”

Maggie’s footsteps echo down the corridor as she leaves. There’s a long pause before the door click shut, a resounding finality in its closing.


	8. Part Eight

They don’t talk about it.

Alex comes home after her eventual DEO orchestrated bailout and subsequent scolding — both courtesy of J’onn ,  expecting a cold and empty apartment waiting for her. She’s instead greeted with the confusing sight of Maggie spread atop the double bed, a laptop balanced precariously on her stomach. She glances up briefly as Alex enters before disappearing back under a horde of NCPD case files, the sound of rapid typing taking over.

Alex blinks owlishly, she makes two cups of coffee and they don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about much else either.

A stiff silence takes over the apartment. It’s a strained quiet that spends the first two days creeping anxiously against the walls before finally settling in, curling up next to the fireplace and making a home in the sudden chasm that lay between them.

It’s not intentional, the silence. But it’s there and Alex doesn’t know whether to attribute it to the fact that Maggie can’t quite seem to look her in the eyes or to the fact that all the words in the world in all their thousands of combinations all fail to rightly communicate what Alex knows she  _ needs  _ to say.

It’s almost overwhelming at first, the lonely silence dredging up memories of a claustrophobic ship that leave Alex jumping at every shadow and unexpected sound. 

She spends the first few days steadfast in her belief that Maggie is going to leave her, convinced that she would wake up one morning to find a packed suitcase waiting at the door, certain that she would deserve it. It’s not until one night after falling asleep on separate sides of a seemingly unbridgeable rift, that Alex awakes to the heart-wrenching sight of a deeply sleeping Maggie curled and burrowed almost painfully into her chest, a white knuckled fist tangled in the front of Alex’s shirt, desperately clutching onto the plaid material as if the simple act of letting go would be her undoing.

It’s in that moment that Alex stops trying to listen for what's  _ not  _ there, and instead learns to listen for what  _ is _ .

Because what is there is irrefutable. If actions spoke louder than words then they were practically screaming at each other, silent words that were messy and complicated and yet somehow able to convey more than what  _ actual  _ words ever could. 

Words that started with ‘please’ and ended in a fervent ‘don’t leave me’. 

And now she can’t  _ stop  _ hearing it. 

Rasped out over two cups of coffee. Murmured in the way that they wake tangled up in each other. Whispered through accidental touches.

She couldn’t lose her.

Alex rolls over with a sigh, pulling her phone of off the bedside table and unlocking it with an unfamiliar passcode — her disfigured fingerprint beyond recognition for the device. She squints at the bright eleven PM glaring back at her.

Twelve unread messages, all Kara.

Alex groans, rubbing at her gritty eyes. It had creeped up on her, lack of sleep and an unsustainable nocturnal pattern finally catching up to her just as Maggie was being called in to work for some ‘administrative emergency’ or the other.

She pulls herself up, wandering over to an abandoned NCPD file on the couch before pausing, a small, yellow note catching her eye. Alex frowns, padding over to the fridge before gently easing the note off of the metal door. She lets out a soft smile, bringing her index finger up to trace the loops of Maggie’s distinctly cursive handwriting.

_ Leftovers inside. Eat something!  _

There’s something drawn after the gentle instruction, a rounded mark like the start of a smiley face or maybe a heart. It’s crossed out, the writer seemingly having second thoughts.

Alex pockets the note, a sinking feeling rising in her chest.

She closes the fridge, no longer hungry.

 

###

 

The bar is all but vacant at this time of night. The few late-night drinkers that remain dot themselves around the tired building, their heads bowed and unmoving. 

The bartender, a purple tinged alien grunts, barely sparing Alex a glance as she sits at a stool, clad in an old hoodie and baseball cap, mumbling out an order for whiskey.

It’s silent, the ancient jukebox dark and long since powered down. It made sense, she supposes, no one came to a bar pushing midnight on a weekday to have a good time. It was a facade pointless to keep up.

The creaking of the heavy, iron door breaks the silence every now and again, people and aliens coming and going without a word. She still tenses with each creak and scrape, eyes darting towards the door almost obsessively, watching for any incoming threat as much as she was searching for a reason to go back to her empty apartment.

The dark cloud that covered the ceiling of the bar was a shared one, thick and full with regret and culpability. It was an  austere  atmosphere unbearable to the majority, a fact proven by the rowdy group of drunk  Icoids  that stumble in before immediately stumbling back out into the night.

The door groans open once more, the last person Alex expects to see walk in is Winn.

Alex hisses out a curse, keeping her eyes downcast and hidden, hoping that Winn doesn’t notice her. The last thing she needs is another confrontation, not right now, not from him and not about  _ her _ .

_ Please. _

“I heard about what you did for Lyra’s brother”

Alex flinches, her fingers tensing around the crumpled note concealed in her pocket.

He’s not angry, or if he is he doesn’t let it leak into his even tone. “You know, i didn’t even know that she had a brother. Lyra, she didn’t like to talk about herself” 

Alex swallows, her eyes fixed on the still, amber liquid in front of her. “Bastian was the only other person she loved as much as you” she says, the words like sandpaper on her tongue.

Winn stills, silent. There’s a scraping of metal against the floor before he sits down on the stool beside her, ordering a drink with a comfortable familiarity that he didn't have before.

“I don’t think that's true” he says suddenly, his voice soft and strangely deliberate.

She doesn’t ask him to elaborate.

“So… how’s it going?”

There’s an incredulous chuckle rising up the back of Alex’s throat, Winn’s forced and almost mandatory inquiry sounding paper thin and wooden. She shakes her head, a strained plea of ‘let’s not do this’ sitting on her tongue, she instead shrugs, finally looking up at him.

“I’m alone at a bar after midnight Winn” offers Alex in lieu of an answer.

“Right” he nods, mouth quirked in understanding “me too”

A pink, iridescent and most likely alien drink is slid across the bar top towards Winn. He accepts it with a quiet ‘thanks’.

“The people that… the people that killed Lyra..?”

Alex’s jaw tightens “i  _ promise  _ you that they paid for it, every single one of them but please don’t ask me to elaborate because i won’t”

_ There’s something in her hand. _

He nods silently, toying with his glass “fair enough” he says, aimlessly stirring the pink froth.

Alex sighs, “what are you doing here Winn?” The ‘with me’ goes unspoken.

“Me?” Winn raises a brow “I’ve just finished what might be the longest DEO shift ever carried out by anyone, save for J’onn of course who practically lives in that building. He doesn’t by the way, i had to find that particular tidbit out the hard way-” 

Alex blinks, just as thrown by Winn’s nervous rambling as she was a year ago.

“-Anyway, point is, i think i deserve a drink. The real question is what are  _ you  _ doing here?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

Winn shrugs, seemingly unaffected by the defensive scowl she’s sending his way. “Kara tells me that you haven’t been answering her calls or texts. She’s worried about you Alex, i’m talking one more missed call away from sending an actual  _ email  _ worried”

There was no doubt in Alex’s mind that Kara was in fact just itching to send her a scathing and disgruntled email. Her phone hadn’t known peace since her recent incident and subsequent stint in an NCPD jail cell. Had it not been for Metropolis’s latest episode involving a horde of disease resistant  Adaptoids, Alex is sure that Kara would have practically been living on her doorstep, firmly equipped with her disappointed ‘Make better choices’ expression.

Then again, knowing her sister Kara probably would have just skipped over the whole ‘doorstep warming’ part and burst right in.

“Kara’s a hero, even without Supergirl. Always has been” says Alex before upending her glass and gesturing to the bartender for another. She sighs, shaking her head softly “I’m not asking for anyone to save me Winn” 

The bartender slides a glass towards Alex. She catches it, about to bring the biting, amber liquid to her mouth when a gentle but firm hand comes down on her wrist, stopping her.

Alex’s head shoots up, affronted at Winn’s gall.

“Well, you see that’s the thing with family, you don’t need to ask”

_ Family? _

“I don’t blame you Alex” starts Winn, the warm compassion and feeling in his tone almost too much for Alex to take.

She looks away, clenching her jaw to fight against the burning of her eyes.

“I was angry, yes” he continues “and if i’m being honest i still am a little, but i  _ never  _ blamed you, not for her, not for anything”

Alex takes a shaky inhale “Why?” she asks around the sudden lump gathering in her throat. 

“Because i know you” says Winn, the four simple words spoken with complete, infallible confidence.

“Knew me” whispers Alex, the blood on her hands not as easily cleansed as Winn’s apparent ability to forgive her.

He shakes his head, resolute “No, you see i don’t think so. Some things, the fundamentals, things that make a certain person who they are? Those never change. I look at you and i can see that, and everything that you’ve done since you’ve come back only reaffirms it”

“Reaffirms what?” asks Alex, a desperate almost beseeching element to her tone, needing a reason as to why, based on Winn’s reasoning, she wasn’t the fundamentally bad person that her memories had created. 

“That you’re still our Alex. Even if you can’t see it”


	9. Part Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really is my baby so i guess it makes sense that it took nearly 9 months to get out.
> 
> ...On a more serious note i no longer watch Supergirl hence why i no longer 'write' for it. Lately however, I've felt inspired.

Alex shuffles awkwardly under Kara’s stony gaze. “You called?” she offers, giving what she hopes is a disarming smile though she knows most likely comes across as sheepish.

It really isn't helping her case.

There’s no response as Kara takes a single step backwards, silently gesturing into the apartment.

The spacious front room appears almost identical to how it did a year ago, still obnoxiously bright and hipster in a way that has Alex wondering how on Earth she had ever stomached living here.

It’s something that she’s about to comment on—if for no other reason than to break the tension tangling between them—when Kara, seemingly no longer prone to beating around the bush, speaks.

“What happened?”

Alex glances towards the couch with a longing sigh, a year ago Kara might have asked her to sit first. Icebreakers, it seemed, along with meaningless pleasantries were apparently things of the past.

“When you say ‘what happened?’ which part are you referring to exactly? Because that’s a pretty loaded question” Alex jokes in a vain attempt to stall and lighten what she already knows is going to be a turbulent conversation.

Kara, however, doesn’t even crack a smile. Her arms, crossed not in her trademark Supergirl way but in an hauntingly Eliza-esque ‘Alexandra-i-expected-better-of-you’ way tense ever so slightly, the only visible manifestation of the effort taken to keep her expression carefully neutral as her next words are spoken.

“How about the part where you went off on a suicide mission and nearly got yourself killed?”

A year ago she might have rolled her eyes and called Kara a drama queen.

But that was then, this is now.

Alex sighs, taking off her coat and draping it over the back of the couch. “I had to get Bastian out” she says with a simple shrug, as if Kara would ever leave it at that.

She wouldn't be her sister if she did.

Kara huffs, her expression changing from irritation to exasperation. “Sure, alright, i understand that part” she says tightly “but you didn’t have to go about it in such a thoughtless, _reckless_ and not to mention dangerous way”

Today, it seemed, was not a day of pulling punching. There’s a small part of Alex that’s glad for that, a small part that hopes that maybe she’ll finally get the chance to just _have it out_ with everyone around her.

There were only so many melancholic glances that a person could take before they started to feel more like an affliction than an actual person.

“Maybe not” agrees Alex “but its done now and you’re blowing this whole situation way out of proportion”

Kara scoffs “you’re unbelievable”

“It happened, it’s _done_ ” Alex stresses, her tone brokering no room for argument, not  on this particular subject. “Did i handle it the way i should have? No, and i know that now, i really do, but its done and i’m done talking about it. Besides, I’ve been doing better lately, I've been talking with Winn and--”

Kara laughs, an actual scornful laugh that manages to cut in a way that Alex has never thought possible of her little sister.

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?” she shakes her head disbelievingly “why don't you go and tell that to Maggie who's been calling me every night _painfully_ lonely and completely drained because all she does is spend her day worrying about you. You know, I honestly believe that she’s found some sort of way to absolve you and to put this all on herself because in her mind she’s _always_ the one who’s at fault”

The silence that takes over the apartment feels almost worse than the agonising words just hurled at her, words that still echo around the suddenly cold and impossibly large room. Alex swallows, unable to do anything but stare helplessly at Kara as her sister opens her mouth to speak once more.

“But you don’t know any of this” breathes Kara, exhaustion clear in both her voice and expression. “Of course you don't. Have the two of you even spoken?”

It takes a few moments before Alex feels able to force her lungs to do more than just heave uselessly.

“She’s been avoiding me”

“No, she’s been giving you _space_ ” Kara amends “Maggie doesn’t know what else to do”

There’s an dullness in her eyes, a resignation that seems almost defeatist in its clarity and its too much, too different from the Kara she remembers, the one who’d always managed to find and hold on to even the faintest pinprick of light in the darkest of situations.

Alex looks away, unable to keep staring into eyes that suddenly feel so much like looking in the mirror.

Her gaze falls through an open crack in Kara’s bedroom door and lands on a pile of pillows and blankets strewn over Kara’s ridiculously chaotic bed. That much, it seems, hasn’t changed. Its one of the few recognisable parts of her sister that had managed to survive the year and she knows should feel glad for it, amused at least, yet all Alex feels is exhaustion and longing.

She doesn’t sleep, not really. At first it had been the nightmares, the memories that were always creeping at the edge of her subconsciousness, waiting for the limitations of her human body to finally catch up to her.

After that it had been an inability to turn off her mind, to untense enough to actually fall asleep, as if there was some sort of invisible switch in her brain that was _always_ set to maximum.

More recently, however, it’s not dreams or uncontrolled vigilance that won't allow her sleep but a single moment that won’t stop replaying in her mind.

There had been a split second just before she’d found herself back home, regurgitated out in the middle of a DEO briefing that going back home, the very thing that had kept her sane and breathing throughout the entire year suddenly became the very last thing she would ever wish for.

Because home was stillness, it was an existence that relied on more than just raw survival. It was an actual _life_ where she would have no choice but to look at all the mismatched pieces of herself that she was left with and try to make something out of that tragic puzzle.

It had only been a split second, but everything that she had felt in its duration, everything that she had been willing to give up, to turn her back on, feelings that still even now remain unclear, it’s _that_ that keeps her up at night.

“I'm scared for you Alex, I’m scared that you’re going to end up doing more than just _wading_ the deep end”

Her gaze centers back on Kara who’s closer now and slowly raising a hand as if to touch her before pausing halfway, hesitant.

“I’ve tried giving you space Alex, i really have, but i refuse to sit by idle anymore while you self destruct. Maggie tells me that you aren't sleeping, that you’re barely eating and all of _this_ ” she says, gesturing between them “god Alex, it’s because i love you”

Kara’s hand, still hung undecided between the two of them finally finds purchase on her lower arm. Alex’s eyes snap downwards towards the touch, a slight furrow in her brow at the unshakable foreignness brought on by the gentle contact.

She doesn’t know whether she needs Kara to move her hand away or to leave it there forever.

“You have to talk about what happened, you _need_ to”

“What do you want me to say Kara?” says Alex, frustration bubbling in her gut. “Everyone keeps telling me that I need to talk about it but I never know what it is exactly that everyone wants me to say”

Kara’s hand falls from her arm as she takes a sudden step back, a hand coming up to rake through her hair before she speaks once again.

“This was a entire year!” she hisses “three hundred and sixty five horrible days that i felt every single second of and never in any one of those days did _anything_ good happen! So why does everyone keep asking me to talk about it? God, i--”

She cuts herself off with a ragged exhale, her throat impossibly raw and painful as she forces out her next words.

“I saw the way you reacted when i told Winn about Lyra, it broke your heart Kara and i’ve already broken everyone else’s, Winn’s, _Maggie’s”_ her voice breaks, a torturous lump in her throat that threatens to swallow her whole. “But i could never break yours, please don’t make me break yours”

She can’t look at her, not anymore, not with the growing pressure clawing at the inside of her chest, a sensation that Alex knows she’d have no chance at fighting or pushing down if she ever saw the look on her sister’s face.

She isn’t ready, not yet.

“I can hear it” Kara breaths, her voice strained “I can take it”

Alex closes her eyes. She can’t stop the singular tear that accompanies her next sentence.

She doesn’t have it in her to try.

“Well, maybe I can’t”

“...Alex”

She shakes her head “It was hell, all of it. And I can’t sleep and i can’t look in the mirror, i can barely eat and I'm terrified of the dark but you know what? I can live with it, god knows how but after everything i can still live with myself” she lets out a wet, self deprecating chuckle “I can, and maybe that’s even more messed up than all the things that should make me unable to live with myself but somehow i know that _i can_ ”

She opens her eyes.

“But I would not be able to live with myself if you hated me Kara. I wouldn’t _want_ to”

“I could never hate you” Kara whispers, eyes reddened.

“What I've done, Kara you'd hate me” she shudders as another tear joins the first “and you'd be right to”

“Alex, no”

“I had to scrape off little pieces of myself to survive and those pieces they’re gone and i’ll never be the same because i can’t get them back, I've _tried_ and I've _tried_ ” chokes Alex, her face crumpling as she slowly crumbles in defeat in the war against her composure “but all i’m left with is this person you'd hate”

She gasps, an agonising sob ripped from her chest as she folds, hands clutching at her knees. “And oh god it hurts, it hurts worse than anything in that year ever could.”

A pair of warm arms quickly wrap around her bent torso, desperately gathering her up to rest flush against their own body, holding her up, holding her together.

She feels Kara’s head against her back.

“I don’t want you to hate me, please don’t hate me, please” Alex whimpers, her words almost unintelligible.

“I could never” whispers Kara, conviction lacing her trembling voice “do you hear me Alex? Never”

“I’m sorry for all of it, i’m so sorry, i’m sorry”

“I could never” she repeats, resolute even as her older sister sobs uncontrollably in her arms “i could never”

Alex doesn’t know whether this is a step forward, she doesn’t know if she would still be upright if not for Kara holding onto her as if the world was ending, she doesn't even know if Kara truly means what she’s saying, not for certain, not in this moment.

What she does know, however, is that all she needs right now is for Kara to never let go.


End file.
